Great post kim ohara! Made me laugh. The shoe fits very nicely on the other foot!

Here is some good news...NYC is divesting about $5billion (pension funds) from fossil fuels....and....they are suing a bunch of energy companies for the damages cause by climate change due to their products!

In its hottest December ever recorded, Alaska was a stunning 15.7°F above the 20th century average. And the year ended with Arctic sea ice hitting an all-time record low.

While the East Coast had a cool December and New Year’s week, Alaska baked. Last Tuesday, Anchorage hit 48°F, warmer than southern cities from Atlanta and Jacksonville to Houston and New Orleans. ...

Climate models have always predicted that human-caused warming would occur at least twice as fast in the Arctic, compared to the planet as a whole, thanks to Arctic Amplification — a process that includes higher temperatures melting highly reflective white ice and snow, which is replaced by the dark blue sea or dark land, both of which absorb more solar energy and lead to more melting.

Unfortunately for the rest of the globe, what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic. Arctic amplification drives more extreme weather in North America, while accelerating the defrosting of the carbon-rich permafrost, releasing carbon dioxide and methane that each cause faster warming — a dangerous amplifying feedback.

At the same time, as the sea ice disappears and Arctic warming speeds up, the the land-based Greenland ice sheet melts faster, which speeds up sea level rise. One 2017 study found that Greenland ice mass loss has tripled since 1997.

The “climate is warming much more rapidly at high latitudes,” said Thoman. “Alaska, of course, being the only Arctic part of the U.S. … We are the U.S.’s canary in that coal mine.”

The impacts of climate change are among the environmental challenges facing Iran that helped spark protests in dozens of cities across the Islamic republic. ...

Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad understood that climate change and water mismanagement was ravaging family farms, and his government provided subsidies to families who struggled to put food on the table, said Amir Handjani, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center. When the current president, Hassan Rouhani, signaled that he would reduce those benefits, enraged Iranians across the nation's arid countryside joined the wave of protests.

"You have climate change, shortage of water, they can't grow their crops, and now they're getting their cash handouts taken away," said Handjani. "It's a panoply of issues coming together at once."

Among the sparks of activism are corruption, nepotism, rippling effects of low oil prices and sour reactions to the Trump administration's denunciations of Iran, said Barbara Slavin, director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council.

She said the role of climate change on the protests is "massive" and underreported by the media. The protests have largely sprung from provincial cities that climate refugees now call home, instead of the capital, Tehran. Those areas have traditionally been more conservative and less willing to speak out against the ayatollahs, she said.

"Iran has had a drought for 14 years, and many of these people who come into these provincial cities and towns are there because they could not function as farmers anymore; there was no water for their farms," Slavin said.

Here is an unscientific, unsupported, biased view: If you want to imagine the future of the middle east without some very sudden reduction of greenhouse gas emissions...think saudi arabia.....specifically the empty area. For an area to become empty like the empty area of saudi arabia you either have to kill everyone who lives there or you have to let them leave......or kill some and let some leave.......who decides who gets to leave those shithole countries?

Better to avoid having to make that decision.....better to avoid anyone having to make that decision.
chownah

Over the past few years, natural gas has become the primary fuel that America uses to generate electricity, displacing the long-time king of fossil fuels, coal. In 2019, more than a third of America's electrical supply will come from natural gas, with coal falling to a second-ranked 28 percent, the Energy Information Administration predicted this month, marking the growing ascendency of gas in the American power market.

But new peer-reviewed research adds to the growing evidence that the shift from coal to gas isn't necessarily good news for the climate.

A team led by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed that the oil and gas industry is responsible for the largest share of the world's rising methane emissions, which are a major factor in climate change — and in the process the researchers resolved one of the mysteries that has plagued climate scientists over the past several years.
Missing Methane

That mystery? Since 2006, methane emissions have been rising by about 25 teragrams (a unit of weight so large that NASA notes you'd need over 200,000 elephants to equal one teragram) every year. But when different researchers sought to pinpoint the sources of that methane, they ran into a problem.

If you added the growing amounts of methane pollution from oil and gas to the rising amount of methane measured from other sources, like microbes in wetlands and marshes, the totals came out too high — exceeding the levels actually measured in the atmosphere. The numbers didn't add up.

It turns out, there was a third factor at play, one whose role was underestimated, NASA's new paper concludes, after reviewing satellite data, ground-level measurements, and chemical analyses of the emissions from different sources.

A drop in the acreage burned in fires worldwide between 2006 and 2014 meant that methane from those fires went down far more than scientists had realized. Fire-related methane pollution dropped twice as much as previously believed, the new paper, published in the journal Nature Communications, reports.

Using this data, “the team showed that about 17 teragrams per year of the increase is due to fossil fuels, another 12 is from wetlands or rice farming, while fires are decreasing by about 4 teragrams per year,” NASA said in a January 2 press release. “The three numbers combine to 25 teragrams a year — the same as the observed increase.” ...

Less fun, unfortunately: the implications for the climate. Methane is a major greenhouse gas, capable of trapping 86 times as much heat as the same amount of carbon dioxide in the first 20 years after it hits the Earth's atmosphere. So relatively tiny amounts of methane in the air can pack a massive climate-changing punch.

“The sharp increase in methane emissions correlates closely with the U.S. fracking boom,” said Jim Warren, executive director of the climate watchdog group NC WARN. “Leaking and venting of unburned gas — which is mostly methane — makes natural gas even worse for the climate than coal.”

The new NASA study is not the first to call attention to the connection between oil and gas and methane leaks. A study in March last year found that natural gas power plants put out between 20 and 120 times more methane pollution than previously believed, due in part to accidental leaks and in part to deliberate “venting” by companies. And as far back as 2011, researchers from Cornell University warned that switching over from coal to gas could be a grave mistake where climate change is concerned. ...

San Francisco ... claims it is planning to fortify its Seawall in an effort to protect itself from rising sea levels and that the short-term costs of doing so will be more than $500 million with long-term upgrade costs of $5 billion. In San Francisco's bond disclosures, it has stated:

City and County of San Francisco wrote:"The City is unable to predict whether sea-level rise or other impacts of climate change or flooding from a major storm will occur, when they may occur, and if any such events occur, whether they will have a material adverse effect on the business operations or financial condition of the City and the local economy."

The city of Oakland, California stated in municipal bond disclosures:

City of Oakland wrote:"The City is unable to predict when seismic events, fires or other natural events, such as sea rise or other impacts of climate change or flooding from a major storm, could occur, when they may occur, and, if any such events occur, whether they will have a material adverse effect on the business operations or financial condition of the City or the local economy."

Similar inconsistencies exist between the claimed harms from oil companies in recent lawsuits and the bond disclosures of Marin County, San Mateo County, the City of Imperial Beach, the County and City of Santa Cruz. By filing lawsuits against oil companies these cities and counties may be admitting that they lied or failed to make truthful discloses to bondholders and bond insurers as required by law.

The moral of the story as I see it: A narrative of white hats / black hats can come back to bite you.

At this time of year we get the release of climate data for the preceding year. People who have been following the science won't get many surprises this time because there have been several previews of the data, but here are the final figures.

No matter what the president tries to claim, the latest science confirms global warming is continuing at an alarming pace, it’s entirely driven by human activity, and his climate policies will lead to disaster.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released their annual global temperature data Thursday morning, confirming that 2017 smashed the record for the hottest year on record without an El Niño. NASA further reported that “the five warmest years on Earth have all occurred since 2010.”

This has scientists particularly concerned because the hottest years typically occur when the underlying human-caused global warming trend gets a temporary boost from an El Niño enhanced warming in the tropical Pacific. “All the natural influences should have made the year cooler than normal, not hotter than normal,” as professor of thermal sciences John Abraham explained ...

One of the new bits of news was this ...

Interestingly, while both NASA and NOAA report that the last three years are the three hottest on record, NASA reports 2017 was the second hottest year on record, and NOAA reported it was the third hottest. NASA and NOAA both track surface global temperature data and independently produce their own records. The difference comes because NOAA’s analysis does not take into account temperatures in most of the Arctic, the region of the world warming the fastest, whereas NASA does.

In that NASA includes data that NOAA omits, NASA is more likely to be correct, i.e. 2017 was the second-hottest year on record.

Australia has been facing electrical power shortages for the second summer in a row.

Summertime 24 hour Electrical Usage curve for Australia
In technical jargon this is known as a load curve. These summertime load curves are similar in nature for towns, for cities, capital cities, regions, States, as well as for the overall Country. These curves are similar to those during the summer months in many of the warmer US states.
-- https://papundits.wordpress.com/2017/07 ... australia/

Weekly averages for week ending 13th January 2018

This Week’s Average For Peak Load – 27369MW

This Week’s Average For Peak Load Supplied from Coal Fired Power – 19729MW – 72.1%

All of Australia's coal fired power comes from 15 power plants with 45 Units in only three States.

This Week’s Average For Base Load – 18802MW

This Week’s Average For Base Load Supplied from Coal Fired Power – 15572MW – 82.8%

For the most recent 12 month period -- 76% of all power consumed on a year round basis in Australia came from coal fired sources.

There were two times during the week when wind power at Peak Power time generated just under 10% of the power being consumed at that time.

At one point peak wind power generated 2600MW out of a total of 18800MW at a Capacity Factor of almost 60% -- double the year round capacity factor average of 30%.
(Capacity Factor = MW produced / 'name plate' or rated capacity)

Unfortunately thermally based energy sources such as coal plants are somewhat less efficient in hot weather ... just the time when power demands are high. Several news report seem to hint that recent temporary shutdowns of coal powered plants was because of the heat but I could find no specific evidence for that. There is evidence that all the coal fired plants are working hard with little margin for error which puts the state and national grids at risk for blackouts.

Comment: Australia is in a bind. National policy wants to shut down the coal plants and replace them with cleaner gas fired generators and renewables. The payment structure to the independent power generators has changed leaving the generators with incentives to shut down their aging coal plants. A failure of planning and regulation at the state and federal level is strongly implicated. Of course there a many causes and conditions but the social, government and human drivers are obvious. Decisions were made which make for 'interesting times' during periods of the highest power demands. Which in Australia usually means periods of hot weather.

See especially the last sentence in this quote from an official government 'explainer':

Dispatchable generation refers to a type of generation based on fossil fuels or hydro power that can be controlled to balance electricity supply and demand.

More flexible power plants based on natural gas firing (such as open-cycle gas turbines or hydro power plants) can operate at partial loading and respond to short-term changes in supply and demand.

Flexibility is the key here. Storage can provide flexibility as well, either from batteries or pumped-hydro storage. The need for such resources is becoming more urgent due to retirement of the older baseload [coal] plants and the growing amount of less emissions-intensive energy sources [wind, solar, hydro].
-- https://arena.gov.au/blog/energyexplainer/

Wouldn't it be logical for Australia to build more coal-fired power stations, they are the world's biggest exporter of coal after all.
They can build much cleaner ones these days, or get Chinese companies to build them.

As Tony abbott wrote “Our effort, however herculean, is barely better than futile, because Australia’s total annual emissions are exceeded by just the annual increase in China’s,” .

p.s Australia signed an agreement in paris a year or 2 back, that looks like a very bad deal (as Trump would say)on this .

Robertk,
In your view what would be the advantage of building more coal powered facilities....and what would be the disadvantages?
chownah
edit: I'm asking because it seems that australia has plenty of power already except for clearly defined peak periods. Natural gas fired turbines are everywhere considered to be superior to coal fired generators for meeting peak demands. Natural gas fired turbines can be brought on line and taken off line quickly and efficiently while coal generators lose efficiency if they are operated this way and have a longer response time. Also, note that australia has got a really lot of natural gas. Did I mention that natural gas peaking plants are cheaper to build and operate than coal fired generators?

Anyway, since the usual wisdom is that natural gas would be the way to go it seems that your view is different so I was wondering what your views are. My explanation of peaking plant usage was pretty sketchy....do you understand how peaking plants work and why natural gas is better (and cheaper) than coal for this kind of use?
chownah

Summertime 24 hour Electrical Usage curve for Australia
[/quote]
Maybe a demonstration might help people see the scale of storage needed to supply the power needed to satisfy peak demand.

Consider the load curve. See the rectangles on which it is plotted. Notice that every rectangle is 6 Gigawatts (6,000 Megawatts) tall and one hour wide. You can verify this by looking at the rectangle in the lower left corner. That rectangle vertically goes from 0 gigawatts to 6 gigawatts so it is 6 gigawatts tall and it goes from 0:00 to 1:00 so it is one hour wide. The area of the rectangle is then 6 gigawatts times one hour which is 6 gigawatt-hours. You can verify this for any of the rectangles and you will see that every rectangle represents 6 gigawatt-hours.

Let's say that we want to use batteries to provide all the power required ABOVE 24,000 megawatts (24 gigawatts). To calculate how much battery capacity you would need you do this:
1. Draw a line horizontally at the 24,000 megawatt mark. Notice that it will cut off the top of the load curve starting at about 07:00 all the way over to about 21:00.
2. Estimate how many rectangles get cut off the top of the load curve with that horizontal line at 24,000 megawatt line. I do this by pairing small pieces with big pieces that look like they can fit together to make a whole rectangle and then adding up how many whole rectangles are made......my estimate is that it is about 10 rectangles.
3. Since each rectange is 6 gigawatt-hours and we have 10 rectangles to supply with our theoretic battery storage system then we need 60 gigawatt-hours of battery storage.
SO WE NEED 60 GIGAWATT-HOURS OF BATTERY STORAGE.

Consider that australia has about 20 million vehicles. Consider (I know this is not what presently exists but just play along and consider) that it is conceivable that they would all be at some time in the future electric vehicles with battery storage the same as the tesla model s with the big battery which is 100 kilowatt-hours. I know that this is not what is but I am doing this just to give us some kind of human scale for storage....I think that this is a plausible scenario which might be achieved at some time in the future so it hopefully will help us get a handle on just how big of a problem this storage scenario requires.....anway......20 million vehicles each with 100 kilowatt-hours of storage would altogether provide 20,000,000 vehicles times 100,000 watt-hours equals 2,000,000,000,000 watt-hours which is 2,000 gigawatt-hours.
PLEASE DO CHECK MY MATH ON THIS. I AM SURPRISED AT HOW BIG THIS IS.
So, if my math is correct the if all of the vehicles in australia had batteries with as much storage as a tesla model s (in the future battery sizes will almost assuredly be larger) namely 100 kilowatt-hours each then it would take only 3% of that storage to provide the 60 gigawatt-hours needed to satisfy ALL of the load above 24,000 megawatts.

This seems do-able......this seems inevitable.
chownah
p.s. Please do check this to find if I made a mistake.....I'm just sort of doing the math as I go along.
chownah

Natural gas fired turbines are everywhere considered to be superior to coal fired generators for meeting peak demands

.
Sure if natural gas turbines are a better way then use them in place of coal.

It really does seem that nat gas turbines are better than coal in every respect; cost, air quality, carbon polution, etc.and about the only ones who think otherwise are the big money people who are heavily invested in coal, the politicians they have bought, an the people who have fallen prey to their propoganda.

Natural gas fired turbines are everywhere considered to be superior to coal fired generators for meeting peak demands

.
Sure if natural gas turbines are a better way then use them in place of coal.

It really does seem that nat gas turbines are better than coal in every respect; cost, air quality, carbon polution, etc.and about the only ones who think otherwise are the big money people who are heavily invested in coal, the politicians they have bought, an the people who have fallen prey to their propoganda.

But....developing solar and wind is even better.
chownah

If it is cheaper- in addition to the other points you mention- then surely it must be used. I really doubt that the coal business in Australia has bought enough politicians to subvert common sense.

.
Sure if natural gas turbines are a better way then use them in place of coal.

It really does seem that nat gas turbines are better than coal in every respect; cost, air quality, carbon polution, etc.and about the only ones who think otherwise are the big money people who are heavily invested in coal, the politicians they have bought, an the people who have fallen prey to their propoganda.

But....developing solar and wind is even better.
chownah

If it is cheaper- in addition to the other points you mention- then surely it must be used. I really doubt that the coal business in Australia has bought enough politicians to subvert common sense.

why is China still planning to build over a hundred new coal stations. Wouldn't they want to minimize costs and go for solar or wind that the article you cited suggests are more economical. Or is that due to subversion of politicians in China by the coal industry?

I was in New zealand last winter for a month, and I was amazed that in this day and age so many people are having to minimize heating (and new zealand winters are cold) due to the cost of electricity. They surely need cheaper alternatives such as wind (so much available in NZ) if they are really cost-effective.

.
Sure if natural gas turbines are a better way then use them in place of coal.

It really does seem that nat gas turbines are better than coal in every respect; cost, air quality, carbon polution, etc.and about the only ones who think otherwise are the big money people who are heavily invested in coal, the politicians they have bought, an the people who have fallen prey to their propoganda.

But....developing solar and wind is even better.
chownah

If it is cheaper- in addition to the other points you mention- then surely it must be used. I really doubt that the coal business in Australia has bought enough politicians to subvert common sense.

why is China still planning to build over a hundred new coal stations. Wouldn't they want to minimize costs and go for solar or wind that the article you cited suggests are more economical. Or is that due to subversion of politicians in China by the coal industry?

I was in New zealand last winter for a month, and I was amazed that in this day and age so many people are having to minimize heating (and new zealand winters are cold) due to the cost of electricity. They surely need cheaper alternatives such as wind (so much available in NZ) if they are really cost-effective.